The intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance domain has a great demand for real time acoustic and image processing systems that operate reliably 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Moreover, as the Global War on Terror continues, civilian and military operations have to shift towards countering and possibly neutralizing enemy asymmetric forces. These forces take the form of snipers, ambushers, improvised explosive devices, drug smugglers, saboteurs, and the like. Unfortunately, existing tools and technologies were not designed to operate against forces that hide amongst civilian populations and employ non-conventional weapons and tactics. The significance of this problem is that terrorists armed with simple, even improvised, anti-personnel weapons can achieve tactical and political objectives against vastly superior conventional forces. These terrorists operate in urban settings and rural areas.
One broad strategy to counter these asymmetric threats is the use of innovations such as remote sensor systems. However, most available sensor systems have two primary drawbacks: (1) limited power and (2) limited line-of-sight communications. These drawbacks limit the effectiveness of such systems. Power limitations limit the ability of these systems to operate reliably and provide round-the-clock surveillance 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year (i.e., 24/7/365). Existing line-of-sight communications limitations reduce the ability of such systems to transmit sensor data to remotely-located end users in an effective manner. Thus, there is a need to overcome these limitations while providing the Department of Defense and others with round-the-clock or “24/7/365” persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (P-ISR) support and similar capabilities.
Governments and businesses also need to monitor their facilities and operations 24/7/365 in urban and rural settings. Government infrastructure facilities such as water treatment facilities, power plants, laboratories, and the like may be targets for terrorist attacks. Similarly, oil pipelines, power grids, warehouses, factories, laboratories, and the like in the commercial sector may be targeted by terrorists or persons engaging in industrial espionage and sabotage. When these facilities are remotely located, the limited or nonexistent power sources in the area may prevent or severely restrict the employment of cameras, sensors, and other ISR devices. In other urban or rural settings, line of sight communications and visibility in areas to be monitored may be reduced. As a result, there is a need to overcome these limitations and provide governments and businesses with readily-deployable, versatile, durable, configurable devices and systems that can provide round-the-clock or “24/7/365” P-ISR support and capabilities.